


who's to say it isn't flight

by raumdeuter



Series: Football RPF Week 2018 [2]
Category: Football RPF
Genre: (human transformation?), Alternate Universe - Temeraire Fusion, Animal Transformation, Getting Together, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-14
Updated: 2018-06-14
Packaged: 2019-05-23 04:15:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14926964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raumdeuter/pseuds/raumdeuter
Summary: Thomas is less displeased than he should be about his dragon suddenly turning into a man. Temeraire AU.





	who's to say it isn't flight

**Author's Note:**

> a sequel of sorts to [on a wing and a prayer](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2483408), which i've slowly begun to accept may never be finished, considering how badly all the teams have aged. remember when kevin and mats still played for dortmund? yikes.
> 
> also, rode and götze were still at bayern when i started this fic, which......also tells you how long it's been, i guess ha Ha

_Upper Bavaria, 1814._

 

“What do you mean, _gone,_ ” says Thomas.

“I mean exactly that, sir,” says the boy. He is one of the newly transferred crew, a round-faced little midwingman whose name eludes Thomas at the moment, Goethe or Kotze or something, and he stares up at Thomas with an earnestness utterly insufferable at—Thomas glances at his pocket-watch—three o’clock in the morning. “I asked the other dragons, but they were all of them sleeping; and in any case they certainly would have heard something, if he had flown away. Unless he flew away very quietly, without telling anyone—”

“The devil he did,” says Thomas. He is altogether too aware of the unimpressive figure he cuts: tousle-headed and rough-eyed from sleep, and still in his nightshirt to boot; he can see whatever respect he might have gained by dint of reputation sliding away from the midwingman’s expression, and knows he will have to work twice as hard to earn it back in the morning. Drills, he thinks, as he pulls on his coat: drills, and trigonometry. “Who was last on watch?”

“Lieutenant Rode, sir, and he swears he didn’t hear a thing,” says the midwingman. “Only he says Miroslav was there one moment, and the next, he wasn’t.”

It is too improbable to be believed, but too much to assume it is some sort of trick. Sebastian Rode is a cheerful fellow with, it must be said, a wicked sense of humor, but even he ought to know a joke like this is beyond the pale. Besides which, Miroslav would never have acquiesced to anything so ridiculous.

Rode says as much, when Thomas confronts him in the empty clearing. At the very least he has wasted no time: here and in the distance lanterns bob back and forth as the ground-crew fans out, and above them Thomas can hear Mesut’s and Philippus’s wingbeats, steady and familiar, as they sweep the sky. A full moon, thank God: light enough for them to see by, if Miroslav has indeed taken to the air.

“But he cannot have gone far,” adds Rode, as if that ought to help. “It isn’t as if dragons simply disappear.”

Thomas crouches and presses a hand to the ground, still warm where Miroslav must have lain. There is no sign of anything having disturbed it recently, save for a line of scuffed grass near the lakeward edge of the clearing, where some incautious foot has trampled it. Rising, he gestures for a lantern of his own: past the surrounding trees, the quiet waters of Lake Starnberg glint in the moonlight, and he purses his lips and frowns, thinking for a moment.

“Have you searched the shoreline yet?” he says.

“We gave it a look, sir,” says Rode, “but he isn’t there: you can see for yourself, if you like.”

His tone of voice has a sympathetic note to it that Thomas finds intolerable. Even from here, anyone can tell there is nothing even remotely dragon-sized by the lake, but Thomas takes a shuttered lantern out to the shore anyway, and once there attempts to collect his scattered thoughts.

Nothing about this seems right: not Miroslav’s sudden departure, nor his failure to leave a message, nor the bewildering lack of clues. He racks his brain, thinking back to their last conversation: something about finding Klinsmann’s old flight-table, so the cadets might practice learning formation strategy. Certainly nothing controversial: and if anyone else had been so idiotic as to pull caps with Miroslav, he should have been the first to know—

Thomas’s head snaps up. For a moment he thinks he must have imagined the sound, but then he hears it again: a distant rustling, and the crackle of dry twigs.

 _Thieves_ is his first thought, and then common sense sets in: as if anyone would attempt to steal from dragons. More likely it is a deer, or a lone wolf, and not worth his time. Still, he regrets not having had the foresight to buckle on his sword; at the very least he might make a suitable club with the lantern, but it would be an awkward affair, and somewhat unbecoming of an officer and a gentleman.

“You may as well come out,” he calls, just to be sure. “We’ve three dragons in the air already: better I bring you in than one of them.”

Silence. Then another snap, louder this time, and a muffled grunt cut short: and some way down the shoreline, a naked figure tumbles out of the trees and lies still.

Thomas hardly bothers hiding his sigh of annoyance. Some unfortunate drunkard from another dragon-crew, no doubt, with the misfortune to pick tonight of all nights to go for a midnight swim. He ought to report the man, but he has never been one to hold overmuch to protocol. “If you would be so kind as to fetch your clothing, good sir, and return to your post—“

The man lurches upright, stares at him for an instant—Thomas catches a terrified expression, a thatch of brown hair made spiky with sweat—and, turning, darts back into the trees.

It hardly even occurs to him to call for help. Thomas springs instinctively after him, the lantern bobbing precariously in his wake. The drunkard, whoever he is, is surprisingly fast on his feet, to say nothing of his good head start; but Thomas hardly has to look to follow the trail of broken branches and upturned earth, and in short order he has the man cornered, his back to an ancient oak.

“Well!” cries Thomas, properly nettled now. “That was a moonlit stroll I hadn’t agreed to, and you with the advantage of me, to boot! You will give me your name, which I won’t recognize, and the name of your superior officer, which I expect I won’t recognize either: this is a pretty way to behave, for someone new to the covert.”

The man says nothing. He only braces himself against the trunk, his breath coming in hard and fast, and now with the lantern-light properly upon him Thomas can see that the man is not as naked as he had thought before, at least not completely: a series of leather straps and buckles stretches tight across his chest and dives between his well-muscled thighs in a manner which only serves to highlight his state of undress, and which would put Thomas in mind of a dragon-harness, if men wore dragon-harnesses.

Thomas takes a curious step forward, and while the man does not attempt another mad sprint, his gaze darts from side to side, as if looking for some way out. Still no reply is forthcoming; he only licks his thin lips once, nervously, and Thomas frowns: something about the man is oddly familiar, though Thomas is certain he has never seen him before.

Then he raises the lantern, and the man’s eyes catch the light: the unmistakable storm-grey of a restless sea, set deep in a face strangely elegant despite his clear distress; and Thomas’s breath dies in his throat as realization strikes him.

“Thomas, for God’s sake,” says Miroslav hoarsely, and the lantern drops from Thomas’s nerveless fingers.

 

\---

 

“So you think it is permanent,” says Miroslav.

“I think,” says Philippus severely, “that what has happened is utterly unheard of, in the entirety of Western civilization; and what examples of the event exist in Eastern literature are so shrouded in myth and legend as to be entirely useless to us, unless you should like to try peeling off your own skin, or drinking the Isar dry.”

“In any case, Miro,” says Thomas, “you do make a particularly handsome specimen of human.”

Miroslav’s fists tighten in his lap, and his mouth twitches in the curious half-smile, half-grimace which Thomas has by now learned to recognize as discomfort.

In the pre-dawn light the lines of Miroslav’s new face are marked with exhaustion, his eyes half-hidden in shadow. The cut of Thomas’s spare clothing suits his body not at all; Miroslav is a little narrower across the shoulders and shorter at the arms, and his thighs are scarcely less broad as a man than they had been as a dragon.

He looks younger than Thomas would have expected of the oldest dragon in the Luftkorps: missing a long grey beard, for one, and not in the least bent or wizened. Instead he stands only a little shorter than Thomas himself, and if he looks a day over thirty-five it is only the gravity of his expression which makes it so: without prompting his face seems to settle itself into an expression of startled solemnity, wrinkling his forehead and throwing the jut of his brow into sharp relief. There is no familiarity in that anxious look, none of the quiet confidence which Thomas has grown to cherish, and Thomas’s fingers beat a restless tattoo against the side of his camp-stool, resisting the absurd urge to smooth out the lines of Miroslav’s brow.

Philippus eyes the two of them, considering. Not for nothing has Löw made him formation-leader, ahead of every human captain in the Luftkorps; not for nothing was there virtually no argument on the subject. Thomas finds himself sitting a little straighter under the draconic gaze.

“We will say Miroslav was called away to Munich,” Philippus says, at last, “on urgent business, and had only enough time to tell Löw, before you left: I will speak with him myself. He must know what has happened, if no-one else.”

“Rode had to be told,” says Thomas. “It was the only way I could have got him to call off the search. And I expect Mertesacker and his crew will want an answer soon, too: we shall have to come up with something suitably outlandish for them, and the rest of our men.”

“A naval officer, I think, Miroslav,” says Philippus, “only just arrived from Bremen—it will explain your gait, if nothing else, and you know the city well enough to pass muster: though damned if I can think of a reason why you have come to the covert.”

“The fortifications by the lake are lacking,” says Miroslav quietly. “Considering the last three attacks on the covert have come from the south, it is only logical we turn our attentions to that end.”

Philippus sits back, looking pleased. “There you have it: your mind has remained intact, at the very least. Try to enjoy being human, if you can: I imagine it must be very unpleasant for you, but I shall send for books, and we shall see if we can’t get the rest of you back, as well.”

Philippus, for all his virtues, has an unfortunate tendency to forget that he is incapable of turning pages by himself; it will be a long and tedious few days for some unfortunate midwingman or, if one cannot be found, his own captain. Thomas presses his lips together at the thought of Schweinsteiger trying to wrap his brain around some unintelligible Chinese text, and failing miserably. Miroslav must have had the same thought, or something similar; one corner of his mouth quirks minutely upward, and the glance he exchanges with Thomas is—better, he thinks: not quite confident, nor even reassuring, but better.

It will be all right, Thomas decides then and there, it must be: and if it is not, he will at the very least make it so Miroslav cannot tell the difference.

 

\---

 

“You’ll need a name,” says Thomas, as they make their way back to the keep. “I can’t very well keep on calling you Miro, and passing it off as an amusing coincidence; that sort of thing might fly with the midwingmen, but Mertesacker’s too sharp for that.”

“Klasnić,” says Miroslav, and Thomas glances back, a little startled, at the name of Miroslav’s first captain. Miroslav, for his part, only smiles awkwardly, and continues, “He had a brother in the Navy, whom Mertesacker has never met: it will be simple enough to take on his identity, for a few days.”

“It will suit well enough,” says Thomas, for lack of a better response. Miroslav speaks little of either of his previous captains, for which Thomas supposes he ought to be grateful: but now and then he will find himself uncomfortably aware of the size of the shoes he has been trying to fill, all these past months.

The little midwingman from the previous night runs up to them as they near the keep’s ancient gates, and Thomas can feel Miroslav tense beside him.

“Captain!” calls the boy, dashing off a quick salute. To Thomas’s great relief, he hardly even glances at Miroslav. “Is it true, what Lieutenant Rode said, about Miroslav being called away on an errand for the Admiral? Only I thought perhaps he might have said so, first: I have a letter for my mother, which I had hoped to ask him to deliver—”

“First of all,” says Thomas lightly, “you have got Miroslav’s class wrong: you know perfectly well he is a middleweight and not a courier. You would do well to remember that, ah, Goethe—”

“Götze,” supplies Miroslav, unthinking, and Thomas bites back an oath as the boy’s eyes widen.

“Second of all,” says Rode, from behind Götze, “I believe you and the other midwingmen have trigonometry that still needs doing—dismissed. Captain, permit me to welcome you to Starnberg covert; you’ve done your research well, I see.”

“Ah,” says Miroslav, helplessly. “Well—thank you, Lieutenant.”

“Philippus has informed me of the circumstances of your arrival,” Rode adds, with a significant look. “Pray inform me if anyone should give you trouble.”

All the same, Rode makes no attempt to hide his stare as they pass into the cool shade of the keep. Miroslav manages to ignore him, though Thomas can still discern a trace of pink about his cheeks.

“Götze wasn’t fooled in the slightest,” says Miroslav, recovering admirably well. “Nor, I expect, will his comrades be, once he has finished telling all of them.”

“He’s sharper than he looks,” says Thomas. “I’ll have to keep an eye on him.”

“You will have to remember his name first,” says Miroslav.

When Thomas looks up, Miroslav is smiling: an unpracticed expression, with something of the startled deer still in it, but oddly charming for all that. Thomas can feel his own face splitting into a grin, then an open laugh; he claps a hand over Miroslav’s shoulder, and still laughing leads him toward the dining hall.

They take their lunch in Thomas’s room; better to eat in relative privacy than for Miroslav to make a hash of using a knife and fork in front of the whole covert. Miroslav’s mouth twists upward in another wry smile when he realizes, but Thomas fancies he can see gratitude in the expression, as well.

“It’s not as if the aviators fare much better, when we are hungry,” Thomas says, as much to be kind, in his own way, as to distract himself from the way Miroslav’s smile warms him through and through. “You ought to see us after our drills: I’d wager the cattle-yards are spotless in comparison.”

“I’d wager they are, after you have done with the place,” says Miroslav dryly, and Thomas nearly upends his tray in an effort to box Miroslav’s ears, which sets him off laughing again.

As a junior captain, and an unexpected one at that, Thomas’s quarters are the smallest in the keep, but he pulls back the curtains and opens the lone window, and pushes his nightstand to the center of the room, and they make do passingly well. The food is simple but good, and though Miroslav eyes the freshly-baked semmel with some suspicion at first, his eyes light up when he takes a bite, and Thomas can hardly hold back his grin.

It is damned good to see Miroslav happy, or happier; unused as Thomas is to this new face, he cannot deny there is something about it which he finds very pleasing, and it cheers him to see its lines a little relaxed. Idly, he finds himself wondering what Miroslav’s skin might feel like: whether it might bear the scars sustained by his draconic form, or carry with it the undercurrent of scales under his fine cheekbones. All at once he has a sudden, inexplicable urge to run his hands over them, or to card his fingers through that wild hair, still approaching vertical despite Miroslav’s best attempts to flatten it.

Then Miroslav licks his lips, a quick darting motion, and catches Thomas staring. He half-opens his mouth, a question rising in his eyes, but a knock at the door forestalls him.

“If it’s that thrice-damned midwingman again—” begins Thomas.

It is a midwingman, but not the unfortunate Götze; instead young Alaba pokes his head through the doorway, snaps off a textbook salute, and cheerfully informs them that Captain Mertesacker requests the presence of Captain Klasnić by the shoreline, as he has questions about the newly installed defenses which need answering.

“Well,” murmurs Miroslav, after Alaba has shut the door behind him, “it is no great surprise; you aviators gossip like hatchlings, and Mertesacker was bound to hear of it eventually. Besides which, it must have been a year at least since he was last in Bremen; he will want to hear the latest news.”

“And you will have it for him?” says Thomas.

“Enough to get by,” says Miroslav. “I am not so deaf with age I cannot keep my ears open, where I can.”

He says the words with a self-deprecating laugh, which Thomas finds as unbearably charming as his smile. “I’ll speak to the staff,” says Thomas, “and see if they can’t clear a room for you; it should be ready by nightfall, and with any luck you’ll be back by then.”

“That will hardly be necessary,” says Miroslav, raising an eyebrow. “Only find me a tent, and I will spend the night in my clearing as usual.”

“And have the whole covert gossiping about the sea-captain who had rather sleep among the dragons than in a proper bed, no doubt,” says Thomas. “It isn’t any trouble; if there isn’t a room, we might set up a cot in here, just as easily.”

Miroslav frowns at the idea, which stings more than it ought, but he does not argue. He says only, “We shall see,” a little stiffly, and rising collects the trays, and takes his leave, leaving Thomas alone with his thoughts all atumble.

Thomas sits frozen in his chair, or he tries to, but that has never been his particular strength; he lasts only a moment longer before a sharp laugh bursts out of him and he slumps forward, burying his fingers in his hair.

There are days when he wakes and remembers all of a sudden that he is an aviator, a proper one, and made captain besides, and can hardly breathe for smiling. But of all the wild daydreams which he had had as a boy, all the mock battles and absurdly fanciful scenes he had pictured made up the life of an aviator, this—this had never figured among them.

It is not the foreignness of the emotion which baffles him, at least not in nature—God knows he and Holger have had their fair share of hayloft tumbles, over the years—only the suddenness of it, and, more sobering, the knowledge that Miroslav will certainly have no desire to reciprocate in kind. No doubt the bond between a captain and his dragon is strong, but this is something else entirely; and if Miroslav had ever felt it, he should have felt it for Ballack, surely, or Klasnić. Now that both of them are dead, he would no doubt find Thomas a very poor replacement.

Thomas groans, and allows himself to indulge in misery for a moment longer before he sits up. Sentimentality has never become him; he does not intend to try it on for size now. But as he rises to push his nightstand back against the wall, his foot knocks against something shoved hastily under his bed, and he finds himself staring down at the dragon-harness from last night.

The dragon-harness. His fingers had tangled awkwardly with Miroslav’s as they struggled with the buckles, still warm from the heat of Miroslav’s body, and for once the urge to laugh had been entirely absent. He had tried to slide the leather bands from Miroslav’s thighs, but his hands had scarcely brushed the skin before Miroslav had shuddered and gone very still: so still he had hardly breathed. Thomas had taken the buckles from his unresisting hands, then, and finished the task himself, endeavoring not to touch him: he remembers even now the shock in Miroslav’s expression, the tense set of his bared shoulders.

Thomas scowls, and kicks the harness further under the bed. He is not some vacant-eyed midwingman, to have the time to spare whiling away the day in embarrassing fantasies. His duties as a captain have not ended simply because his dragon has suddenly turned into a man, and a particularly handsome one at that; there are drills to be overseen, and countless other tasks to manage, and there is certainly no use in pondering the matter further, lest he risk himself acting like some great ninny when Miroslav returns.

 

\---

 

But Miroslav does not return that afternoon. He does not come to supper, either, though Thomas looks for him all around the dining hall; and Mertesacker, seated next to him, only shrugs his lanky shoulders.

“He came up with me from the lake not two hours ago,” he says, “and said he was going to have a look round the keep; I imagine he shall have a great many plans for us, before long. He’s a clever fellow, you know: I was predisposed to dislike him, but he is not at all like most of the Navy clodhoppers I have known: as good a man as his brother, I’d wager. One gets the feeling he actually knows what he’s about.”

Thomas finds no sign of suspicion on Mertesacker’s face, which is reassuring; if he had thought something amiss he should certainly have been the first one to speak up. But it leaves him with no idea where Miroslav could have gone: the keep is not so large that he could have gone unnoticed. Nor is he in his clearing, nor anywhere on the covert grounds, that Thomas can think of; and both Rode and the ground-crew are similarly ignorant of his whereabouts. Not for the first time that day he thinks of Miroslav’s previous apprehension, and his reaction at the notion of sharing a room with Thomas: perhaps he had come on too strong; perhaps he ought not have said anything at all.

So in truth the sight that greets him when he returns to his quarters should not surprise him in the slightest: the dragon-harness gone from underneath the bed, and Thomas’s spare shirt and trousers laid out carefully over his sheets, folded by an inexpert if well-meaning hand. But Thomas still stands there awhile, as if staring like an idiot will bring Miroslav back: then he grimaces, and turns abruptly from the room.

This time of year night falls late; above him the dusky sky still runs a soft grey, fading to purple: more than enough light to see by as he passes under the trees that line the lake, though he takes a lantern with him, and a sword, as well. Miroslav has left no trail this time, at least, none that he can see: he is learning already, Thomas thinks, and all the more inconvenient for it. Thomas cannot remember where it was he found Miroslav the first time, but he suspects it will not matter; neither will Miroslav, and Thomas already knows what to do.

He crashes further into the woods, making no attempt at hiding the noise he is making, and shouts Miroslav’s name until he feels his throat might burst. The lack of response only encourages him to shout louder: even so, the shadows have grown nearly impenetrable before his efforts are rewarded, and as he draws breath to shout again a quiet voice says, “Thomas, for heaven’s sake, you need not wake the entire Corps to find one man.”

He turns to see Miroslav seated beside a fallen chestnut, looking both annoyed and resigned. How he has managed to don his harness again, Thomas cannot imagine, but he has; and Thomas notes with no small measure of discomfort that it sits better on him than Thomas’s spare clothing ever had.

“What the devil are you playing at?” demands Thomas, relief bringing all his irritation to the fore. “You might at least have said something: I did have half a mind to rouse the Corps again, and I should have done it, with no regrets.”

“I did not mean to cause you grief—“ begins Miroslav.

Thomas snorts. “Well, you damned well have, whether you meant to or not: now come back to the keep, it’s all over mosquitoes out here, and you haven’t your scales to protect you now; that’s another thing I expect you will hate about being human.”

“And if I were to return to my proper form in the middle of the night?” Miroslav says sharply, and Thomas blinks, startled at his sudden vehemence. “What then? A fine mess that would be, with the keep in shambles and I the cause of it.”

Truth be told, it is a possibility Thomas had not considered: it is not as if he has got used to Miroslav’s new form ( _\--nor should you wish to,_  whispers his barely-used conscience), it is only that he finds the change considerably less burdensome than he had otherwise expected.

“The keep’s seen worse, and I expect you have too, you old warhorse,” says Thomas. Still Miroslav does not move to stand; his hands bury and unbury themselves in the rich topsoil, and Thomas resists the urge to fidget.

Miroslav’s mouth twists. “You do not understand,” he says, finally, and for once the veiled anger in his voice gives Thomas no comfort. “Of course you would not. Not when a body like this is all you have known, when you have no idea of your own fragility: how easily you bruise, and bleed, and yet you persist in flinging yourselves into combat, at our sides—”

“A little confidence goes a long way,” says Thomas, with a grin he does not entirely feel. “Come now, it isn’t as bad as all that, surely: there are certain advantages to being human. The cooking is better, for one. Trousers, for another, though you seem to have forgone those tonight. Come back to the keep—”

“It is not the keep I worry about,” Miroslav says, “nor myself.”

Thomas scoffs. “Then what the devil is it?”

It seems an eternity before Miroslav meets Thomas’s gaze, and once he does Thomas finds he cannot look away. “I have given a full measure of my affection to the captain in my keeping,” he says, his voice low but firm, “and I should not like to see it spent so quickly, nor so foolishly.”

His words are enough to give Thomas pause. There is no denying the bond between a dragon and his captain, that much is obvious, and of course there is—an understanding, he supposes, of considerable strength: enough for Miroslav to trust a word in his ear; enough for Thomas to trust the wings at his back. But to hear the words spoken aloud by Miroslav, who has ever been guarded in his thoughts—Thomas finds, quite suddenly, that he has no suitable response.

Miroslav rises in one careful motion and reaches up to cup Thomas’s face in his long fingers, his eyes unreadable. His hands are oddly warm, even in the summer air: some remnant, perhaps, of the dragon he was only a day ago.

“Well?” says Thomas, all his sensibilities temporarily interrupted. “Have you come to call in your debts? I am afraid you will find me a terrible spendthrift after all—”

His voice dies away as the pad of Miroslav’s thumb brushes hesitantly over his temple; for a long moment Miroslav stares at him, hardly breathing. Then something in Miroslav’s expression shifts, and he draws Thomas abruptly to him, pressing his lips to the faded scar on Thomas’s brow.

All at once Thomas is lying in a field in Italy again, his vision rust-colored, his hands sticky with his own blood. In the distance the dark shapes of dragons spiral; and a great scaled body crouches above him, fending off wave after wave of grenadiers with the fury of one possessed.

Was this when it started, he thinks: was this when he began to understand what it meant, to captain a dragon? He thinks it might have been. He blinks, and finds he has been staring blankly into Miroslav’s worried eyes.

“Was that too—” says Miroslav, and swallows. “I beg your pardon, Thomas: I did not intend to presume—I have only seen it done, before—”

Thomas laughs, feeling oddly lightheaded. “Your theory is sound enough, though I find your practice somewhat lacking,” he says, and, catching Miroslav’s wrists in his hands, leans forward and kisses him properly.

For one horrible instant he thinks he has misjudged, but then Miroslav makes a soft, questioning sound and opens his mouth to him: one hand curls loosely in the fabric of Thomas’s sleeve, as if he is afraid of tearing it with the talons he no longer possesses, and the other breaks free of Thomas’s grip to trace nervous circles along the back of his neck.

In answer Thomas tightens his grip on Miroslav’s wrist and deepens the kiss, reveling in the jolt of heat as Miroslav’s tongue slides suddenly against his, and is rewarded with a shudder and the scrape of blunt nails against the side of his head. Under his fingers Miroslav’s pulse runs quick and strong, and his skin is as smooth as any other man’s, and Miroslav presses forward, his earlier hesitation fading fast. He pushes back against Thomas with as much eager curiosity as passion; and when his teeth scrape across Thomas’s bottom lip hard enough to sting it is all Thomas can do to hold back a groan.

He could do this forever; he is unspeakably angry at himself for not having done it sooner.

“Come back to the keep,” Thomas says, quieter this time. “Or your own clearing, if you are so damned worried about turning back into a dragon; I will find a tent, and you can watch me try to pitch it, and laugh—”

Miroslav silences him with another kiss, this one slower, and pulls him closer until Thomas can feel Miroslav’s chest pressing against his, through the rough linen of his shirt. He tilts his head slightly, adjusting the fit of their lips; slowly he slides one knee between Miroslav’s thighs, and Miroslav gasps into his mouth, fingers tightening in Thomas’s hair. Even here the heat of him feels as if it will scorch Thomas alive, and somehow it is still not enough.

As they break apart again Miroslav angles across Thomas’s jaw and mouths determinedly down his neck, his tongue curling into the hollow at the base of Thomas’s throat. He thinks he ought perhaps to be embarrassed at the noise he makes, then, but it is not as if there is anyone else to hear him, and anyway he has long since found being embarrassed at anything more trouble than it is worth. Miroslav’s tongue works its way across his collarbone, evidently encouraged by his response; this time Thomas’s free hand flails out, catching on the band of leather that runs up the length of Miroslav’s spine, and as the motion pulls at the harness-straps between Miroslav’s legs his head snaps back and he stiffens, a choked moan escaping his lips.

“Miro,” says Thomas, breathlessly. God, but he is beautiful like this, arched back against the fallen tree, the sweat standing out on his skin, his prick already hard and flushed against the planes of his stomach. Miroslav’s eyelids have fluttered shut, and his eyebrows are drawn together; but when Thomas reaches up to brush his jaw with one hand and he opens his eyes again, it is not pain that clouds his gaze.

“Do that again,” he says, so softly Thomas thinks he must have misheard: but Miroslav is staring at him with such intent he cannot help but oblige. He pulls again, sharply, the leather biting deep into the flesh of Miroslav’s thighs, and Miroslav jerks against the harness and moans so loudly Thomas is certain the entire covert will be able to hear him.

An image flashes unbidden into his mind again at the sound: Miroslav standing in his room, shuddering and silent under Thomas’s hands as he struggled with the harness buckles. He had taken his reaction for disgust at the time: what a damned idiot he had been, what a waste--

Now Miroslav stares down at him with open want as Thomas pushes him none too gently to the ground, places his hands with especial reverence along the contours of Miroslav’s thighs, traces the red marks the harness-straps have left behind. Instinctively he drags his teeth up along the inside of one thigh, and Miroslav makes a tight, strangled sound, his cock smearing a clear line across his belly, his long broad fingers digging furrows into the ground. His breathing has gone shallow, every staccatic inhale stretching the leather band across his chest, but when Thomas pauses along the inside of his other thigh he shakes his head once and wordlessly presses Thomas’s head back down with a dirt-marked hand.

He tastes of salt and a little of earth, lingering faintly on the tip of Thomas’s tongue, and he runs strangely hot even here, so that Thomas feels warmed through and through with every slow lick. He sucks another bruise into the skin, and another, moving teasingly upward, lifting Miroslav’s hips as he goes, until Miroslav’s thighs are resting on Thomas’s shoulders, until Thomas’s hands are spreading him apart. Miroslav half-opens his mouth then, as if to say something, and Thomas pauses. But he only swallows hard and tips his head back, exposing the pale line of his throat in some unspoken gesture of trust.

At the first press of Thomas’s tongue inside him Miroslav makes an abrupt, shattered sound, as if he has been shot. His thighs tighten suffocatingly about Thomas’s ears, his legs trembling, and as Thomas, encouraged, presses deeper, he tightens his grip on Thomas’s hair until he sees stars. He could make Miroslav come like this, he thinks blindly: he could lose himself in it, the tight clench of Miroslav around his tongue, the desperate noises each obscene thrust wrenches from him. He pulls away for a moment, just to catch his breath, and immediately feels Miroslav’s heels dig against his back, pulling him forward again, as if some part of him were trying to fuck himself open on Thomas’s tongue alone.

The thought of it could drive Thomas mad: but of course he wants more, has always wanted more. He holds himself still, enjoying the feeling of Miroslav struggling to draw the remnants of his self-control about him; and after a long moment Miroslav relents, his thighs sliding apart with trembling slowness.

“It isn’t all bad then, is it?” says Thomas. “Being a man.”

Miroslav attempts to level a glare at him, but he looks so utterly disheveled by Thomas’s attentions that they can neither of them hold the other’s gaze very long; Thomas breaks first, laughing helplessly, and Miroslav’s mouth quirks upward in surrender.

“It is not altogether unpleasant, no,” he concedes wryly, and as Thomas lowers his mouth to his prick he reaches out and carefully buries his fingers in Thomas’s unruly curls.

He is quieter this time, though not by much, and his bitten-off gasps as Thomas takes his prick to the hilt are as much an encouragement as the hand twisting sharply in his hair. Thomas runs his tongue along the underside of Miroslav’s cock as he pulls back, traces it along the ridge of the head and gently, teasingly over the slit, before sliding his lips back down, memorizing the hot, salt-bitter taste. Miroslav’s hips buck against him, and he does it again, pulling at the harness where it crosses Miroslav’s hip, and Miroslav arches helplessly into him, his eyes falling shut. Thomas has never seen him so overwhelmed, every twitch and shudder of his body magnified in the flickering lamplight, and he wants—he _wants_ —

Miroslav only opens his eyes at the sound of turning metal, and by then Thomas has what he needs; the lamp oil is slick and warm against his fingers, dripping down over his wrist. Miroslav raises himself up on his elbows, watching with some confusion as Thomas sits back and draws his trousers down, freeing his own erection; then, realizing, as Thomas presses the first finger into himself, says in a voice that shakes only slightly, “If the lamp goes out and we must stoop to rutting in the dark like a pair of dunces, I shall blame you.”

Thomas’s laugh catches in his throat. “Your estimation of my stamina exceeds mine; I am grateful for it.”

Quickly he adds a second finger, working himself open with as much impatience as his own body will allow. With his free hand he pulls at his cock, more out of habit than anything else; and it is not until he has pressed a third finger in alongside the first two, hissing at the stretch of it, that Miroslav speaks again.

“Thomas,” he says, low and urgent, “let me.”

Thomas straddles him willingly, guiding his hand so that his fingers slip into him as Thomas’s slip out. Miroslav fumbles briefly, uncertain; then his hand crooks into Thomas with a little more surety, and Thomas leans up to kiss him again. If Miroslav is gentler than Thomas ordinarily likes, it is no great sacrifice; there is something endearing about his carefulness that holds Thomas’s impatience at bay, if at least for a little while. They stay pressed against each other, Miroslav’s fingers working steadily into him, until finally it is no longer enough; and when Thomas breaks off the kiss and sits up, Miroslav half-opens his mouth, as if to ask a question to which he already knows the answer. He holds himself nearly motionless under Thomas’s hands, shivering a little with anticipation, like a charger dancing under the rein. Thomas reaches back to smear the remainder of the lamp oil along his cock, and he chokes back a moan: but that is all.

“Christ,” says Thomas, wonderingly; all the jokes he had lined up in his head about _riding_  suddenly sound tired and stale on his tongue. “Christ, Miro, but I want you inside me.”

And for a moment, that, too, is enough--the slow burn as Miroslav breaches him; the swell of Miroslav’s cock filling him at last; the sensation of Miroslav shuddering underneath his thighs as Thomas finally, finally begins to move. But even now he can feel his patience, already sorely tested, crumbling to pieces. Miroslav thrusts up into him with such agonizing slowness Thomas can hardly bear it: on the next upsweep he braces his hands against the harness and forces himself down on Miroslav’s prick, and Miroslav draws in a shocked breath, his jaw working convulsively, his fingers tightening against Thomas’s hips.

“I told you,” says Thomas, “we are not so fragile as all that, myself least of all—“

The world spins about him, then, and it is not until his head lands in a damp pile of leaves that he realizes Miroslav has upended them and he is flat on his back, his knees around his ears. He stares dazedly up at Miroslav, who has braced one arm on either side of him and is gazing back down at him with a tortured expression on his face.

“Thomas,” says Miroslav, hoarsely. “God, Thomas, is this—may I—”

“You fucking may,” says Thomas, and then there is nothing else to consider: only the indescribable pleasure as Miroslav thrusts into him, setting a pace so furious he can only let himself be swept along by it. It is a little like riding after all, some distant part of him thinks, though the rider has let himself be unseated; after a little while Miroslav finds his rhythm, though it is hardly less energetic than before, and when Thomas cants his hips into the movement Miroslav strikes him at an angle so perfect he thinks he might come untouched.

Miroslav bows over him, eyes half-shut, his breathing grown ragged already; Thomas pulls his head down to rest in the crook of his neck, and Miroslav shudders helplessly against him, pressing open-mouthed kisses to his collarbone, his throat, the line of his jaw. From here Thomas can see the curved line of Miroslav’s back and the lean muscle rippling underneath the harness; he can hear the creak and slap of leather against metal, and as Miroslav’s pace begins to stutter, he reaches out to ground himself, and pulls the harness tight.

Miroslav’s back arches; his hips jerk once, twice, slamming into Thomas of their own accord. Through the rush of blood in his ears Thomas thinks he hears him say _my captain_ : then Miroslav’s teeth are sinking into his shoulder, hard enough to bruise. In the end he cannot for the life of him decide which of the two tips him over the edge, and in any case it hardly matters: Thomas comes so hard he thinks he might go blind, and a moment later, Miroslav follows.

 

\---

 

“I dreamed, once,” says Miroslav, “that the opposite had happened: that it had been you who had become a dragon, and you flew so high you might have put out the sun with your wings.”

“A dangerous endeavor,” says Thomas, loftily, “and uncharacteristically irresponsible of me,” and Miroslav laughs and cuffs him about the head, lightly, before sobering.

“Sometimes I think I might have preferred it that way,” he says, and before Thomas can protest holds up a hand: “Not that I would exchange this for anything: but to have it, and to share the skies with you again—“ He shrugs once, and offers him a half-smile. “I only wonder if you had ever thought of the same thing.”

Thomas regards him with mock solemnity. “In the first case,” he says, “I expect we would have been dishonorably discharged for knocking down half the covert. And as for the second: well!”

He closes his eyes. The breeze prickles at his sweat-damp skin, but Miroslav’s chest is warm against him, and when he draws a breath he can feel it echoed at his back, strong and deep.

“As for me,” he says, drowsily, “I don’t dream much, anyway.”

 


End file.
